#LOTR reread

[a-study-in-dante]

August 31st, 2024 | Reading LotR with my coffee in the morning instead of doomscrolling and going back to the library.

This week has been eye-opening and I know now I have no other choice than leaving my summer laziness behind and start working seriously again. I have a deadline on October 1st and it will be tough to meet it as the start of the year will no doubt be super busy and the amount of work ahead is no joke. Let's do this 💪

[lotreaux]

The "Riders of Rohan" chapter is full of gems but one of those is that there were three horses that Éomer offered to give to the Three Hunters, and since Gimli plainly refused to "ride a beast", he ended up riding behind Legolas. The films present this as if there were only two horses so they made do out of necessity, but no, Gimli son of Glóin just didn't want to sit on a horse by himself and said as much proudly to the Third Marshal of the Riddermark. King.

[daydreamerfallingbehind]

not a day goes by that i don’t think about gimli telling legolas “You comfort me. Where you go, I will go,” and then a few chapters later, legolas telling gimli “You comfort me, Gimli, and I am glad to have you standing nigh,” like the dedication to each other, i love them so much

[verkomy]

“frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. not that sam gamgee put it that way to himself. he shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: ‘I love him. he’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. but I love him, whether or no.’”

[roselightfairy]

Real Legolas stans can give you a baffled half-hour outburst about how we don't understand why the HECK Legolas was given all these increasingly ridiculous and absurd stunts in the movies while his single, beautifully-written, traditionally heroic (and much more plausible) moment was omitted entirely.

Legolas laid down his paddle and took up the bow that he had brought from Lórien. Then he sprang ashore and climbed a few paces up the bank. Stringing the bow and fitting an arrow he turned, peering back over the River into the darkness. Across the water there were shrill cries, but nothing could be seen.   Frodo looked up at the Elf standing tall above him, as he gazed into the night, seeking a mark to shoot at. His head was dark, crowned with sharp white stars that glittered in the black pools of the sky behind. But now rising and sailing up from the South the great clouds advanced, sending out dark outriders into the starry fields. A sudden dread fell on the Company.   'Elbereth Gilthoniel!' sighed Legolas as he looked up. Even as he did so, a dark shape, like a cloud and yet not a cloud, for it moved far more swiftly, came out of the blackness in the South, and sped towards the Company, blotting out all light as it approached. Soon it appeared as a great winged creature, blacker than the pits in the night. Fierce voices rose up to greet it from across the water. Frodo felt a sudden chill running through him and clutching at his heart; there was a deadly cold, like the memory of an old wound, in his shoulder. He crouched down, as if to hide.   Suddenly the great bow of Lórien sang. Shrill went the arrow from the elven-string. Frodo looked up. Almost above him the winged shape swerved. There was a harsh croaking scream, as it fell out of the air, vanishing down into the gloom of the eastern shore. The sky was clean again. There was a tumult of many voices far away, cursing and wailing in the darkness, and then silence. Neither shaft nor cry came again from the east that night.

Also, when I was first reading these books, I was going really really fast and I missed the couple of mentions of "Legolas and Gimli are friends now, isn't that weird?" and so I do believe THIS was the scene that bowled me over and strapped the goggles to my face:

'Praised be the bow of Galadriel, and the hand and eye of Legolas!' said Gimli, as he munched a wafer of lembas. 'That was a mighty shot in the dark, my friend!'   'But who can say what it hit?' said Legolas.

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Silmarillion-knower Celeborn when this sounds vaguely familiar:

[the---hermit]

16|09|2024

I spent the weekend at a lotr themed b&b with my mom, and now I want to build my own hobbit hole. The joy of hopening a round door. It was so good. It was so cool kinda litteral bc at night it got super cold but thankfully we had a bunch of blankets. I didn't get much reading done, but I have started the return of the king, and I am so ready for this final section to the adventure. I am enjoying this reread so much. I should also take a moment of appreciation for my mom, bc she is honestly up for any random thing I suggest we might do together, and we had such a lovely time in the past two days. I am looking forward to more future weekends of adventuring together and exploring new places, we make great travel buddies and that's a great way to spend quality time together.

[goldberry-bombadil]

Highlights of reading Lord of the Rings to my friend Part 1 (we just finished Fellowship):

Being harassed for answers about Tom Bombadil's identity and not believed that Tolkien never told us "You know! I know you know!"

Stopping in the middle of Lothlorien to explain who Feanor was

In general explaining a lot of stuff from the Silmarillion because he wants to know what people are talking about

Him falling asleep right before the attack on Weathertop

Him falling asleep during the council of Elrond

Him falling asleep not once, not twice, but three times during Moria

For someone who hasn't even finished the trilogy he is very interested in who Morgoth is

After 400 pages of needed to know the background information about everything, he didn't care what "Arwen vanimelda, namarie" meant

[galadrielspeaks]

legolas and gimli the true drinker vs smoker couple 🫶

[winwin17]

Before the Fellowship departs Rivendell, Sam is gloomily talking to Bill the Pony.

" 'Bill, my lad,' he said, 'you oughtn't to have took up with us. You could have stayed here and et the best hay till the new grass comes.' Bill swished his tail and said nothing."

😂😂

Tolkien's subtle humor tho.

[a-study-in-dante]

August 11th (13th) 2024 | Started reading The Lord of the Rings in English! I read it first in French something like... 15 years ago now ? 😅😂

Decided to keep track of some themes because putting tabs helps me stay focused on the reading somehow, let's see how my copy ends up looking!

[makeshiftdraco]

Rereading LOTR and found this detail amusing:

I just love that Sauron is so committed to his aesthetic that the Orcs only steal black horses.

[daydreamerfallingbehind]

i love that the first time that legolas is introduced he’s referred to as “a strange Elf”

[verkomy]

glóin looked at frodo and smiled. ‘you were very fond of bilbo were you not?’ he asked. ‘yes,’ answered frodo. ‘I would rather see him than all the towers and places in the world.’

[modernmythic]

Soooooo I tried to do a LotR bookclub this year with some friends and all of them kinda gave up toward the end of The Fellowship but...I kind of want to try again. But I wanted to see if people who are actually into LotR would be interested.

Basically the idea is you can do a low commitment reading of the entire Lord of the Rings in a year by reading 3 pages per day (if you have a single volume edition, however I made a start/stop guide for people who didn't.) I wanted something that was pretty low commitment because I was annotating the book. Sometimes I'd read a week at a time, some days I'd actually just read 3 pages. It's really just preference or doing what works for your schedule. But every 2 weeks we'd have a discussion of the section we read. It was pretty fun and there were lots of details we got to dig into by breaking it down into these smaller chunks.

Would anyone be interested in doing A Year of LotR in 2024?

I'd probably try to have a similar format of biweekly (super chill and informal) discussions, but I'd work out the details with anyone who was interested.

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

It's canon that Sam gets the one F-bomb in Fellowship of the Ring